'Here is my aunt coming.'
The same moment he was at the piano again, playing My Bonny Lady
Ann, so as to astonish Miss St. John, and himself as well. Then he
rose, bade her a hasty good-night, and hurried away.
A strange conflict arose in his mind at the prospect of leaving the
old place, on every house of whose streets, on every swell of whose
surrounding hills he left the clinging shadows of thought and
feeling. A faintly purpled mist arose, and enwrapped all the past,
changing even his grayest troubles into tales of fairyland, and his
deepest griefs into songs of a sad music. Then he thought of
Shargar, and what was to become of him after he was gone. The lad
was paler and his eyes were redder than ever, for he had been
weeping in secret. He went to his grandmother and begged that
Shargar might accompany him to Bodyfauld.
'He maun bide at hame an' min' his beuks,' she answered; 'for he
winna hae them that muckle langer. He maun be doin' something for
himsel'.'
So the next morning the boys parted--Shargar to school, and Robert
to Bodyfauld--Shargar left behind with his desolation, his sun gone
down in a west that was not even stormy, only gray and hopeless, and
Robert moving towards an east which reflected, like a faint
prophecy, the west behind him tinged with love, death, and music,
but mingled the colours with its own saffron of coming dawn.
When he reached Bodyfauld he marvelled to find that all its glory
had returned.
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